C35496.jpg
Rowland in 2007
Facts of the Crime:
Sentenced to death in San Mateo County on June 29, 1988 for the rape, robbery and beating death of Marion Geraldine "Geri" Richardson on March 17, 1986.
C35496.jpg
Rowland in 2007
Facts of the Crime:
Sentenced to death in San Mateo County on June 29, 1988 for the rape, robbery and beating death of Marion Geraldine "Geri" Richardson on March 17, 1986.
On September 9, 2009, Rowland filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cal...v03037/137512/
On October 2, 2012, Rowland's habeas petition was DENIED on summary judgment in Federal District Court. Furthermore, the judge, William Alsup, declined to issue a Certificate of Appealability.
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal...37/252841/273/
On October 16, 2012, Rowland filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca9/12-99004/
On October 4, 2017, oral argument will be heard in Rowland's appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/calenda...=2-6&year=2017
Rowland's Ninth Circuit panel will be made up of Judges Wardlaw (Clinton), Clifton (G.W. Bush) and Owens (Obama).
https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/calenda...2010&year=2017
In today's opinions, the Ninth Circuit AFFIRMED Rowland's conviction and death sentence.
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastor...6/12-99004.pdf
I know everybody here agrees with this, but it's just absurd that this guy was sentenced 29 years ago, and his sentence hasn't been carried out.
Thank you for the arithmetic edit! Oops!
Fixed now.
Last edited by Derrick Jensen; 12-07-2017 at 04:01 PM.
29 years but yes we agree
Livermore man’s death sentence upheld for rape-murder
By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle
A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of a Livermore man for raping and murdering a woman he met at a bar in Contra Costa County in 1986.
The court said it wouldn’t second-guess state court findings that jurors hadn’t been tainted when a prosecutor reminded them that California voters had overwhelmingly approved capital punishment.
The trial of Guy Rowland was marred by defense attorneys’ errors in addition to the prosecutor’s improper comments, but a mistake-free trial would probably have reached the same result in light of Rowland’s “monstrous criminal history,” said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The court said it was required by federal law to be “highly deferential” to the state Supreme Court ruling that upheld Rowland’s death sentence.
Rowland was 24 when he met Marion “Geri” Richardson, 31, at a bar in Byron in March 1986. An off-duty bartender testified that Richardson brushed off Rowland’s advances, stayed in the bar after he left and later headed for home.
According to medical testimony, Rowland beat Richardson, raped her, then choked her to death after forcing her to swallow a potentially lethal dose of methamphetamine. He then drove her body to Half Moon Bay and dumped it in the ocean. He later asked his girlfriend to help him clean the victim’s blood and hair from his truck, but she called the police, the court said.
Rowland had recently served a prison sentence for kidnapping two 13-year-old girls and raping one of them in 1980, the court said. Prosecutors also presented evidence of uncharged beatings and rapes, including assaults of his stepsister and another woman less than a week before the murder.
According to defense evidence, Rowland’s family was abusive, his mother twice attempted to drown him in the bathtub as a baby, and he had been diagnosed with several mental disorders. One witness, psychiatrist Hugh Ridlehuber, conducted a brief evaluation and testified that Rowland was still suffering the effects of his traumatic childhood, but said after the trial that he probably would have presented evidence of brain damage if he had been given time for a more thorough analysis.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the court said Rowland’s trial lawyers had been ineffective by failing to contact Ridlehuber earlier or prepare him adequately. But under the deferential standard of federal law, the state’s high court “could have reasonably concluded” that the verdict would have been the same because of the brutality of the crime and Rowland’s record, Judge John Owens said in the 3-0 ruling.
The court had a similar assessment of the prosecutor’s comments to the jury in closing arguments at the penalty phase — that California’s voters had overwhelmingly approved the death penalty and had removed three state Supreme Court justices from office in 1986 for overturning death sentences.
“We disapprove of the prosecutor’s comments,” Owens said, but they did not “minimize the jury’s responsibility” to reach is own conclusions.
Michael Levine, one of Rowland’s appellate lawyers, said he was disappointed by the ruling and would probably ask the full appeals court for a rehearing.
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/...r-12411197.php
On April 4, 2018, the Ninth Circuit DENIED Rowland's petition for en banc rehearing.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/18-5039.html
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